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Israeli-Palestinian Riddle Won't Answer Middle East's Wider Woes
(Reuters) Crispian Balmer - U.S. officials still hope that resolving the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian confrontation will help to unlock the Middle East's wider problems, but analysts say it no longer lies at the strategic heart of a troubled region. "That was probably the case before the Arab uprisings, but a number of other struggles have now joined it, such as the Sunni-Shi'ite struggle and an intra-Sunni conflict," said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center think tank. To explain American thinking, you only need listen to retired general James Mattis, head of the U.S. military's Central Command until March. On July 20, he said, "I paid a military security price every day as the commander of Centcom because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel," suggesting that this was holding back moderate Arabs from endorsing U.S. policymaking. Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, bristles at such a link. Gold, who used to be a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policy-making circle, said, "It is ironic that a Western officer would speak about Israel being a source of political difficulty when, under the table, Arab states are seeking closer ties with Israel because of the shared threat coming from Iran."